268 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



was a contingency on hard weather, as well as a proof 

 that the statement we had heard was true. This 

 puts me in mind of a fact furnished me by Mr. Weld of 

 Lulworth Castle. The evening had set in with a south- 

 east wind and drizzling rain or sea-mist, but towards 

 morning, when the moon rose, the wind shifted to the 

 north, the sky cleared, and a very sharp frost super- 

 vened. The shepherd attending the sheep in the park 

 arose before six, the frost at its height, and the moon 

 making it light as day ; and as he was approaching the 

 fold, his path lay under some high trees, the favourite 

 roost of wood pigeons. The man's astonishment may 

 be more easily conceived than described when, on his 

 footstep crunching on the frosted leaves and hard 

 ground, he suddenly felt himself under a shower, not 

 of frogs or little fishes, but of good fat wood pigeons, 

 the birds tumbling on his head and running about 

 his legs incapable of flying. Having an eye to 

 plunder thus cast in his way by Providence, he 

 set about kicking and catching right and left till 

 he had wrung the necks of and collected more 

 birds than he could carry away in a sack. The fact 

 was the feathers of the pigeons, thoroughly wetted 

 by the mist in the early part of the night, particu- 

 larly the long wing feathers farthest from the heat 

 of the body, the ends of which when at roost rest 

 upon the tail, had frozen fast in the morning frost, or 

 at least fast enough to prevent an immediate flight. 

 The quists, ignorant of the circumstance, when sud- 

 denly frightened by the shepherd, sprung from the 

 boughs on which they sat, but failing in their expected 

 flight they fell to the ground and were captured. 

 Facts are thus again more strange than fiction, and 

 we need go no further than the truth to find matter 



